Unemployment Falls to Lowest Level in Four Years; Right-Wingers Can't Believe Their Eyes

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IT'S OFFICIAL. President Barack Obama is doing a better job of dealing withunemployment in his first term than Ronald Reagan.  

Sarah Palin might not believe it—the Alaska Banshee showed up on Fox News lastweek to warn again that Obama was leading the nation down the road tocommunism—but there are facts, adamantine facts, to consider. 

For all Americans able to read actualgraphs, the numbers and the overall trend are quite clear. On February 1,2009, at the start of Mr. Obama’s first full month in office, unemployment inthe United States stood at 8.3%. Today, on its Facebook feed, even Fox News hadto admit the rate had fallen to 7.7%.  

No doubt right-wingers will go into “damage control” and endeavor to put theworst possible spin on the numbers. In the end, though, their efforts will onlybe sad. We all know what happened 31 days ago. The polls indicated Barack Obamawas going to win. Yet, real numbers could not convince the right that they werebeing delusional any more than real birth certificates could convince them PresidentObama had every right to sit in a comfy chair in the White House. Those firstfive days of November 2012. Those were happy times for the right. Everyone fromDick Morris to Karl Rove to Rush Limbaugh and Anne Romney was predicting thatour 45th president was going to be 100% more Mormon and noticeably more white. 

Now the right must either crack their skulls on another set of facts orcontinue to insist facts don’t exist.  Unemployment surged during Mr. Obama’s first eightmonths in office, peaking at 10% in October 2009. From the start of histerm to today, however, he has cut the rate six tenths of one percent. 

That means the policies of his administration are working. 

Thirty years ago, Mr. Reagan had the same kind of difficulty turning anailing economy around. On February 1, 1981, when he picked up the newspaper to readthe funnies, unemployment stood at 7.4%. Job losses soared for sixteen monthswhile he was in office. They soared higher, too, peaking at 10.8% in November1982.  

It took Reagan, a man who never saw a tax cut for wealthy Americans he didn’tlike, his entire first term to cut into unemployment, so that byJanuary 1985, the rate had fallen to 7.3%, a drop of one tenth of one percent.

Job numbers fluctuate from month to month, of course, and Hurricane Sandyscrambled this month’s data. So the WallStreet Journal warns today against excess optimism (also known asgiving President Obama any credit), explaining: “Friday’s release for Novemberwill be the least important look at the labor market in about five years.” 

THOSE WHO RELY SOLELY ON FOX NEWS for information won’t believe it (see below); butthat doesn’t mean the unemployment numbers aren’t the lowest since December2008. The report for this month, the overall trend since October 2009, andevidence from Reagan’s first term all indicate that this is good news for thecountry.